The barbecuing of food has become increasingly popular in recent years, largely due to the unique flavor imparted to the food by the barbecuing process, and also due to the fact that barbecuing is a relatively simple way of providing tastily cooked food. A major drawback to barbecuing, at least until recently, has been the fact that the smoke and gaseous combustion byproducts resulting from the barbecuing have severely limited its use indoors. One fairly recent approach to overcoming this limitation has been to provide a barbecue grill in a cooking range along with an air blower and air ventilation means to exhaust the noxious fumes. While this approach has achieved satisfactory results, it requires the construction of a ventilation system including an exhaust vent to the outdoors. The installation of such a system often requires considerable expense.
Another drawback to barbecuing is the lack of means for controlling the temperature of cooking. Thus, methods of cooking such as baking, which require a regulated temperature, cannot be done with a barbecue.
A further problem of barbecuing is familiar to anyone who has cooked by this method, and that is the problem of burnt food. This problem is especially acute in the cooking of meat, since fat dripping onto the hot briquettes often ignites into a flame which can char the meat. Thus, the barbecue must be constantly watched to prevent the meat from charring.